The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both - Vaclav Havel

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Zionist Niceties...

When The Iranian President Ahmadinejad made his now infamous and indefensible "Israel must be wiped off the map" statement, he was addressing a conference entitled "The World without Zionism".

This statement was used quickly by our own mass murderer, Tony Blair, as well as other world leaders, to promise the Iranians a taste of their own medicine.

But with all this rhetoric and grandstanding flying around, we tend to forget some of the niceties the Israelis have been saying over the years about the Palestinian people and the Zionist cause in particular.

Just to get you warmed up, here's a quote from an interview of Ariel Sharon by Amos Oz, a tale of healthy bombardments and small massacres....

We'll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality, the moral lessons of the holocaust or about the Jews who were supposed to have emerged from the gas chambers pure and virtuous. No more of that. The destruction of Eyn Hilwe (and it's a pity we did not wipe out that hornet's nest completely!), the healthy bombardment of Beirut and that tiny massacre (can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?) in their camps which we should have committed with our own delicate hands rather than let the Phalangists do it, all these good deeds finally killed the bullshit talk about a unique people and of being a light upon the nations. No more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance.

By the way, the Sabra and Shatila massacres for which Mr Sharon had to stand down as Minister of Defence, following massive protests in Israel itself, cost an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Palestinian lives, just a few more than the quoted 500 figure. Sure, had the IDF done their own dirty work instead of relying on the Phalange, the death toll might have been much higher still...

And from an interview with "C.", who apparently isn't Sharon.

Leibowitz is right, we are Judeo-Nazis, and why not? Listen, a people that gave itself up to be slaughtered, a people that let soap to be made of its children and lamp shades from the skin of its women is a worse criminal than its murderers. Worse than the Nazis ... If your nice civilised parents had come here in time instead of writing books about the love for humanity and singing 'Hear O Israel' on the way to the gas chambers, now don't be shocked, if they instead had killed six million Arabs here or even one million, what would have happened?

Sure, two or three nasty pages would have been written in the history books, we would have been called all sorts of names, but we could be here today as a people of 25 million!"

"Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don't care. And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. Then you can spruce up your Jewish conscience and enter the respectable club of civilised nations, nations that are large and healthy. What you lot don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it.

I've hardly any illusions about any extremists and or fundies. But that particular piece just jumps right out and simultaneously grabs one by the throat, kicks one in the head and bites one in the arse.

1. You keep saying every religion has its extremists. The same is true about national movements - including Zionism.

2. Beware of historical anachronisms. The situation in the Middle East in general and Israel in particular a few decades ago, or even in the 1990's, was far different from what it is now. For instance, there's a huge difference between 1948 and now; Rabin of 1983 and Rabin of 1995 is not the same.

3. Selective quoting doesn't prove much, especially when most of the quotes are old. Someone can just as easily compile a long list of quotes by Zionists promoting peace and praising Palestinians.

1. ALL social groups (not just religious groups) have extremists. A golf club will have a few nutwings with very extreme ideas about golf, club life, the annual barbecue etc. It is also true of Zionists or Palestinians.

2. Radical Zionists are around today, as they were in 1948, although the numbers may differ substantially from today.

3. Examples only serve as illustrations, not as real proof. But that doesn't take much away from their power.

I'll be posting about an important peace movement in Israel, of which I'm an Internet member, Peace Now.

I didn't say there aren't radical right wing Zionists now. I'm saying they are a very small (yet very loud) group.

Many people see Zionism as nothing but the far right version of Zionism, and don't realize Zionists can be liberal peaceniks too. It's important to make the distinction. Maybe you do, but it's also important that your readers realize the differences within Zionism.

Extremists are alway a minority, no matter how troublesome they are. That's true of extreme Zionists, extremist Palestinians, fundamentalist Islamists... and golf nuts.

As regards my readers, I'm a commentator mainly, not an eductaor. I perhaps naively assume my readers (yes, all THREE of them!!!) have a brain in working order and are capable of making up their minds for themselves, like you do.

I didn;t realize that those quotes were taken from the Muslim Public Affairs Committee in the UK. They have the same credibility as AIPAC does especially when digging for information on the 'other' side.

As I pointed out with Ben-Gurion's first quote, I would not be surprised if some of the other quotes posted on that websie are inaccurate or taken out of context.